


forgiveness. (can you imagine?)

by secretlyhuman



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Post Infinity War, Sadness, this fixes nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 23:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14604450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretlyhuman/pseuds/secretlyhuman
Summary: Tony isn’t sure if he ever noticed how quiet the tower was without Pepper. It’s totally quiet, total fucking silence. Every time he closes his eyes he sees the dust that coated the living room floor when he got home from Titan, or the way Peter sobbed in his arms. He failed them, didn’t even have a body to bring back to May Parker, a woman who’d already lost too much.Across town Steve Roger’s breaks punching bags one by one until his knuckles bleed and then he keeps going. He thinks of the war and how crashing a plane into an ocean was a better option than a life without Bucky. He has to put on a public face, tell people it's going to be okay. Like they didn’t just watch half the world turn into ash.





	forgiveness. (can you imagine?)

**Author's Note:**

> This basically me processing the end of infinity war while listening to its quiet uptown on repeat. (Also start/ end by Eden)

Tony isn’t sure if he ever noticed how quiet the tower was without Pepper. It’s totally quiet, total fucking silence. Every time he closes his eyes he sees the dust that coated the living room floor when he got home from Titan, or the way Peter sobbed in his arms. He failed them, didn’t even have a body to bring back to May Parker, a woman who’d already lost too much.

(He refuses to think about the fact that May Parker might not be a person anymore either.)

He turned off Jarvis, that first night alone in the tower. The alarm he’d set had been blaring for days by the time he returned. It didn’t matter, he was too late to save her. He turned off Jarvis and muted Dummy and he isn’t sure if he’s talked in months, now that there are no people left to hear him. No one that matters anyway.

After he silenced the whole goddamn tower he used it to search. He looked for Steve and Nat, for Rhodey and Ned. He doesn’t check on anyone else, maybe it's better to not know. So he checks on them, sends Ned Peter’s mask and cries in his lab.

He failed them.

…

Across town Steve Roger’s breaks punching bags one by one until his knuckles bleed and then he keeps going. He thinks of the war and how crashing a plane into an ocean was a better option than a life without Bucky. He has to put on a public face, tell people it's going to be okay. Like they didn’t just watch half the world turn into ash.

He wonders if it hurt. Not just for Bucky and Sam but for all the people he’s lost. For Peggy and the Commandos and for his mother. Sometimes he thinks of a few years before, when there was a team and something to fight for.

Steve doesn’t cry anymore, it's one of the things he lost in the ice. He almost wishes he could find his way back there. The ice has to be better than the whole world knowing he was too weak to defend them. Everybody lost someone, whole families wiped out in seconds and there was nothing he could.

So he hits things and then falls asleep dreaming of the cold.

…

The air on Titan tasted like burning and smoke and Tony will never be rid of it. A kid died because of him and now the smell of smoke clings to him. He tries to tell himself it was the only way but then he remembers the way Ned cried on his doorstep. He got the mask and he went to the tower and he just cried. And there was nothing he could say or do to fix the fact that Peter was dust and so was half the world and he had let it happen.

So he’d sat down next to him, still silent and prayed that Ned couldn't smell ashes.

…

The church near Steve’s house is Baptist so every few days he journeys away from his apartment to find a Catholic Church like the one where he grew up. He lights candles, so many damn candles and then he prays. He’d forgotten what praying felt like. Not the easy thankful kind but the kind that’s really just begging and bargaining. He hasn’t had to pray like that in a hundred years, not since he jumped out of a plane to find a Nazi base.

He could have gone his whole life without remembering what it feels like to really pray.

…

Tony thinks of Steve when he sees the light filtering through the windows, soft and golden. One day he finds the sketches he’d made for a new metal arm. He’d never got it right. He should have tried harder.

Near Steve’s building two teenagers are painting a mural of a kid they call Peter who’s dressed in a suit that could only come from Stark. He cries when he sees it and they cry too. They don’t ask him who he lost but they all grieve together for a while as Steve helps them paint.

…

Somewhere far away spies grieve and a princess trains for war. A raccoon searches for his family, with an assassin by his side.

The world starts to spin again but no one is the same. Neither of them are sure how to mend what’s left behind.

…

The invites arrive on a Wednesday. They hold an official seal from Wakanda and are signed in Shuri’s name. They travel across an ocean for the opportunity to mourn. They fly together, silence filling the small plane with every unsaid thing. Tony isn’t sure if he remembers how to talk after so long. Steve longs to find the words that can bridge all the empty spaces.

…

Shuri is smaller than Steve remembers and she now walks with a cane. She looks older and sadder than she ever should have. She holds a ceremony in her mother's favourite garden and her eyes fill with tears at every mention of her brothers name. She talks about Bucky and Steve feels like he might break.

He still doesn’t know how to cry. Tony isn’t sure he knows how to stop.

…

The world still tastes like burning and Tony longs for the safety of his lab. For a place away from the genius queen who can't be older than Peter was. The service is beautiful but all he can think of is how he failed them all. Steve and Peter and Bucky and Bruce. They’re all dead because he didn’t fight hard enough. Because he didn’t know how to warn them.

…

Steve thinks he’ll stay in Wakanda, in the same place Bucky did. It seemed to help so maybe it will fix the fact that he no longer dreams of the ice but Bucky saying his name and a kiss that never happened. The hut is small, it has a stove and a bed. The weather is good but he wishes it would rain until all his guilt is washed away.

On the third day he wakes up to Tony Stark sat by his bed. He looks like a ghost, like a shell of the scientist he knew. His eyes are hollow and blank. Steve wonders who he lost. They don’t talk for a while, just sit in the warm place.

(The place where Bucky had been.)

…

It takes a week for Tony to remember how to speak. Up until then he just sits by the Captain’s side, it becomes difficult to work out why the papers mattered to him so much. They can’t have been worth losing Steve. But on the seventh day he opens his mouth.

“His name was Peter. He was a good kid and I failed him.”

“Stark.”

“He trusted me and I failed him.” Tony isn’t sure when he started crying again but it looks like Steve might be too.

“Bucky’s gone.” Steve realises its the first time he’s said it out loud and it hurts. It hurts so fucking much. For the first time in so many years he feels tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, realises he’s missed the feeling.

…

They stay in Wakanda for a month. Every morning Stark comes to the hut and they talk, they share their stories. Tony tells Steve about Peter’s internship and how Pepper was gone. Steve tells Tony about the ice and about how he doesn’t know who he is without Bucky.

Eventually they return to the real world. Steve moves back into the tower and they drink coffee looking out over the city as the sun rises. They contact May Parker and tell her that her nephew was a hero. Steve contacts the two teenagers and they paint more murals. Soon the walls of Brooklyn and Queens are covered in them, at first they just paint the heroes but they move on to civilians. Tony and Steve open a grief counselling charity and scholarships in the names of the people they feel they failed.

The world keeps turning. Soon Steve stops dreaming of the ice and the taste of ashes fades away. 


End file.
